


Fairytale

by eluna



Series: Passage 'Verse [8]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Eleven | Jane Hopper is a Byers, Gay Will Byers, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mike Wheeler Loves Eleven | Jane Hopper, One-Sided Will Byers/Mike Wheeler, POV Will Byers, Past Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Post-Season/Series 03, Sad Will Byers, Unrequited Love, Will Byers Loves Mike Wheeler, Will Byers-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 12:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20471276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eluna/pseuds/eluna
Summary: The morning El is supposed to come home, Will answers the phone only to hear Mike’s voice through the receiver. “I broke up with El,” he says. He’s panting, as though he’s been running or something, and Will wonders if it’s due to nerves. He tamps the thought down quickly.“I’m sorry,” he says, because he has no idea what else to say.“Can you come out here? Like, now?”





	Fairytale

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm currently taking suggestions for themes to include later in the series :)

El goes up to Hawkins again over the first week of summer break. Dustin makes the offer for Will to come with her and stay at the Hendersons’ place, but Will turns him down. He and Mike haven’t spoken since Easter weekend when Mike came to Sullivan, and Will knows that’s for the best, that seeing Mike again in any context will just make it harder than it already is to get over him.

(The last weekend Mike spent in Sullivan, as Will predicted, didn’t help matters at all. He keeps torturing himself with the memory of Mike’s arms around him, replaying it over and over again in his mind when he should be paying attention in class or in driver’s training. He wants more. He wants _more_. And another visit to Hawkins would only bring more of the same.)

The morning El is supposed to come home, Will answers the phone only to hear Mike’s voice through the receiver. “I broke up with El,” he says. He’s panting, as though he’s been running or something, and Will wonders if it’s due to nerves. He tamps the thought down quickly.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he has no idea what else to say.

“Can you come out here? Like, now?”

Will’s insides feel like they all seize up and clench down at the same time. “Can’t you talk to Lucas or Dustin about it?”

“Yeah, but I want to talk to you.”

“Can’t we talk on the phone, then?”

“I want to see you.”

“My mom already left to pick up El.”

“Yeah, I know; they left a few minutes ago. Get Jonathan to take you.”

“…I’m not going to be your rebound, Mike. I didn’t sign up for that.”

“What? No!” says Mike frantically. “It’s not like that. I just want to see you and get shitfaced drunk and talk about stupid girls are. That’s it, I swear.”

Will breathes a sigh of—he doesn’t even know. Not regret, but not relief, either. “Let me ask Jonathan. Hold on.”

Jonathan agrees to do it in exchange for Will taking over his chores for a month. They leave a note for Mom telling her where they’ve gone, and Will packs a bag, and they hop in the car and go, Will hoping against hope that he’s not going to regret this, knowing that he’s almost certainly going to regret this.

Mike has already solicited a bottle of whiskey from Steve and gotten started on chugging it down by the time that Jonathan drops Will off at the Wheelers’ house. He says hello to Mrs. Wheeler, who points him to the basement, and finds Mike curled up on the couch, hiccoughing. “Byers!” he says, standing on wobbly feet and beckoning Will forward for a hug. Mike slumps against him, visibly tipsy already, and Will closes his eyes.

“So tell me about this breakup,” says Will reluctantly.

“She’s just so _possessive_,” says Mike emphatically, burping in Will’s ear before he pulls back and flops back down on the couch again. Will takes a seat next to him and raises a hand to decline when Mike tries to pass him the bottle of whiskey. He’s had alcohol before, from Jonathan, and already knows he doesn’t really like the hot, un-centered feeling it brings him.

Mike continues, “You know, she always has been, in little ways—like how for the whole first year after she met Max, she didn’t like it whenever I would talk to her, even just little things, even just saying hello! And whenever she came to Hawkins to visit, she didn’t like it, either, if I would spend _any_ time talking to _anyone_ but her when we were in a group, like I had to put _all_ of my attention on her just because she’s my girlfriend. And I get it, you know? I get that she feels like she doesn’t fit in with anyone besides me and sometimes Max, and I get that that’s—_lonely_. That’s why I let her get away with it, because I felt sorry for her, and I didn’t want her to feel lonely because I loved her. I still do love her. But…”

“But?” prompts Will. Mike shakes his head, a trickle of drool trailing down the corner of his mouth onto his chin. “Mike, why did you really want me to come here?”

“I told you, I wanted to talk to you about El. Not to Dustin or Lucas. They don’t know her like you do.”

“I barely know her myself, Mike.”

“Yeah, but you _live_ with her. You know what I’m talking about because she treats you like this full-time. And—and because I can talk to you freely about why we really broke up.”

“Which is because…?”

“You. Because of you,” hiccoughs Mike.

Will feels his whole body go cold. “What did I do?” he asks numbly.

“It’s not _really_ your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. We were arguing again about how I never told her you had feelings for me—I was trying to explain to her how most people think it’s really bad to be gay, and how some people hide it because of it, and how I was leaving it up to you to tell it to who you felt comfortable telling it to. But she wouldn’t listen. And I said there wasn’t anything going on and that I had nothing to hide, and she said that if I had nothing to hide then I should be able to tell her honestly that nothing had ever happened between you and me, and so _I_ said that there was that one time you kissed me but it was an accident and I didn’t kiss back and it wasn’t a big deal, and _she_ said that it _must_ have been a big deal for me not to tell her, and then _I_ said that maybe we should break up if I’m such a terrible boyfriend, and she said okay, so I said okay, and that’s when I left to find Steve and get him to buy me some alcohol.”

Mike says this all very fast, as if he’s racing to get the whole story out there so that he and Will can shit on it, and Will is still totally dumbfounded as to what he’s supposed to say. It’s not like he hasn’t been wishing for this day for years or anything. And now that it’s happened, how does he show sympathy without being a bald-faced liar?

“I still love her, and I know she still loves me, but the _way_ she loves me, it’s like—it’s excessive. It’s warped. You know?” And Will knows exactly what Mike is talking about, because the way _he_ loves Mike is warped, too. “It’s like nobody else in her life matters to her except me and how I interact with other people. And she has other people! I know Lucas and Dustin haven’t kept in touch with her, but Max has! Max has _always_ really, really wanted El to be her friend, even before El was willing to do it. And I know you—I know her relationship with you is—difficult—” (Will snorts a little bit) “—but your mom has always been really great with her! And it sounds like Jonathan has been a really patient tutor. She has people besides me; she just doesn’t pay attention to any of them.

“And then there’s the way that she talked to me for two hours and _didn’t tell me_ the first day after you and I had that fight and you—you know, when you stayed in bed and couldn’t do anything until Mrs. Byers finally dragged you to the doctor. I had to find out from the party the next day at school. It was so manipulative. It’s just one thing after another with her. It really is. I love her, but I don’t want to do it anymore.”

“You don’t?” Will asks very quietly. “If you still love her, how do you know you’re not going to change your mind and ask for her back once you calm down?”

Mike takes another swig from the bottle. “I wasn’t _planning_ on breaking up with her, but it feels right. I was just feeling so _stifled_, talking to her for literally hours every day, feeling like I couldn’t be myself around my other friends because of her, around _you_. And I don’t entirely blame her for that. I could have turned off Cerebro instead of talking to her for so long on it. I could have spent less time calling her and more time calling _you_ and hanging out with our other friends. But—the way she depends on me—it’s not right.”

Will’s leg is bouncing very fast, and he scoots further away from Mike toward the edge of the couch. “Mike, the way _I_ depend on you isn’t right.”

Mike’s head jerks down, and he meets Will’s eyes, looking guilty. “I—I know. I know you say you need me too much. But you don’t—you realize that you actively push me away all the time, right? You may feel like you’re too reliant on me, but from my perspective, it’s like you know that you do better without me around.”

“I _do_ know that I do better without you around, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel like I _need_ you around.”

“I still don’t see what’s so wrong with that. _I_ need _you_ around, and I don’t see anything warped about my feelings for you.”

“No, you _don’t_ need me, Mike. You want me in your life, but you don’t _need_ me in your life. If you really needed me, you wouldn’t be able to function without me around.”

“You function without me around,” Mike argues. “I mean, yeah, you had that breakdown and had to go to the hospital, but you got the help you needed, didn’t you? You’re managing your life just fine without me in it, aren’t you?”

“I wouldn’t say _just fine_. Most days, it feels like I’m barely hanging on.”

Mike pauses. “And it would _really_ just go away if I told you I loved you and wanted to go out with you.”

“The… sure, the _symptoms_ would go away, but the _problem_ wouldn’t, would it? I would still need you. I would be like El. And if it didn’t work out for some reason, it would be—worse than it is now, and I don’t know if I could stomach that.”

Mike reaches over and holds Will’s hands in his own. Will’s palms are sweating. “You make it sound like you’re really, really messed up over me.”

“I am,” Will admits. “I am.”

“But I’m glad you’re here today,” Mike slurs. “I missed you. I wanted you here.”

Will really, really wishes that he could freeze this day in amber, that his life could always be like the way he feels when he’s with Mike and he’s _wanted_. But today is just a fairytale, Will reminds himself as Mike curls up on the couch with his head in Will’s lap, allowing Will to run his fingers through Mike’s hair as Mike drifts off into a drunken stupor. Tomorrow, Jonathan will come pick him up to take him back to Sullivan, and he and Mike will stop talking again, and he’ll go back to Trying to Get Over Mike like has become his life mission the last year-plus. This isn’t real.

It isn’t real, and Will has no room for wishes.


End file.
